Your lease company are utter idiots. Which bit of this on the back to the Notice to Keeper (NtK) they received were they unable to comprehend?
If you are a hire or leasing company, please provide us with a signed statement confirming the hirer's name and address and include a copy of both the hire/leasing agreement and their statement of liability.
Documents can be submitted by visiting www.geminiparkingsolutions.com or by post to PO Box 5767, Dingwall, IV15 OAX. For hire or lease companies, please provide us with a signed statement confirming the hirer's name and address and include a copy of both the hire agreement and their statement liability. Their letter of authority is not the way to transfer liability and they remain liable if Gemini want to chase them, which means that you will probably be charged when the Tusker morons just pay the charge. You also know they are intellectually malnourished when they refer to a
Parking Charge Notice (PCN), a civil matter, as a
Penalty Charge Notice which is a statutory matter. A speculative invoice for an alleged breach of contract by the driver from an unregulated private parking firm is not and can never be a "penalty".
THe NtK is addressed to Tusker who are the Keeper. You are the Hirer. In order to transfer liability, Tusker must follow the instructions on the back of the NtK and once they have done that, Gemini must issue a Notice to Hirer (NtH) in your name and then you can deal with it.
PCNs for hired/leased vehicles are "golden tickets" as long as the hire/lease company correctly transfer the liability as required under PoFA 2012 paragraph 13. You can then guarantee that Gemini will fail to fully comply with PoFA paragraph 14 and there can be no transfer of liability to the Hirer, as long as the driver is not identified. There is no way that anyone could know who the driver is unless the Hirer blabs it, inadvertently or otherwise.
For now, you need to send the following to Tusker and make sure you CC in yourself:
Subject: Private parking charge – formal instruction to transfer liability under PoFA 2012 (hire vehicle)
Tusker reference: [Tusker ref if any]
Gemini PCN reference: [PCN reference]
Vehicle: [VRM] — Event date: [dd/mm/yyyy] — Site: [Location]
Dear Tusker,
You have forwarded a Notice to Keeper addressed to you as the keeper, with a “third-party authorisation”. That does not transfer liability under the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 (PoFA).
To discharge keeper liability for a hire/lease vehicle you must, within 28 days of the NtK being “given” (deemed delivered two working days after the issue date), give the creditor the documents prescribed by PoFA Schedule 4 paragraph 13(2): (1) a signed statement naming the hirer and confirming the hire at the material time together with the hirer’s address for service; (2) a copy of the hire/lease agreement; and (3) a copy of the hirer’s signed statement of liability. Your own NtK reiterates this requirement:
“If you are a hire or leasing company, please provide us with a signed statement confirming the hirer’s name and address and include a copy of both the hire/leasing agreement and their statement of liability.”
Action required now: send the PoFA paragraph 13(2) documents to Gemini and make clear that this is a formal PoFA transfer. Instruct Gemini to correspond with me as the hirer and to serve any Notice to Hirer at the address below. Do not make payment.
Hirer details for service
Name: [Full name]
Address: [Postal address]
Email/phone (optional): [Details]
Your correspondence repeatedly refers to a “Penalty Charge Notice”. That is wrong and misleading. A Penalty Charge Notice is a statutory instrument issued by public authorities (for example under the Traffic Management Act 2004 or the London Local Authorities and Transport for London Act 2003). It engages a formal statutory process (PCN → Notice to Owner → representations → adjudicator at London Tribunals/Traffic Penalty Tribunal), and any sums are payable to the public authority. By contrast, a Parking Charge Notice from Gemini is a civil, contractual invoice issued by a private company on private land. It is not a “penalty”, there is no statutory enforcement or adjudication, and any sum is payable to the private operator; keeper liability (if any) arises only via strict compliance with PoFA Schedule 4. Conflating these terms is embarrassing for a leasing firm and risks being a misleading action or omission contrary to the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008.
Please correct your templates and confirm by return that: (a) you have completed the PoFA transfer; (b) you will not pay or recharge any sum relating to this private parking notice; and (c) all future references will correctly describe such notices as Parking Charge Notices.
For the avoidance of doubt, I do not admit to being the driver and I am under no legal obligation to do so.
Yours faithfully,
[Name]
[Date]
You can also send the following to Gemini, again CC yourself:
Subject: PCN [PCN reference] – Hirer correspondence and requirement for Notice to Hirer
Gemini Parking Solutions
PCN reference: [PCN reference]
Vehicle: [VRM]
Event date: [dd/mm/yyyy]
Location: [Site]
Dear Sir or Madam,
Please find attached a letter from Tusker authorising me to correspond in relation to the above matter. I am the hirer of the vehicle.
Until a valid Notice to Hirer is issued in my name at the address below, I am not obliged to respond further. Please place the matter on hold and confirm that no further action will be taken or passed to third parties pending service of a Notice to Hirer.
This is not an appeal and should not be treated as such.
Hirer details for service
Name: [Full name]
Address: [Postal address]
Email/phone (optional): [Details]
Enclosure: Tusker authorisation letter
Yours faithfully,
[Name]
